As the water starts to warm after the bass spawn, the shallows come alive with spawning bream. Though bluegill are the most prevalent to do this throughout the country, shell crackers and other bream bed in a similar way, creating a substantial food source for largemouth and spotted bass.
These bream don’t make their beds just anywhere though, so they can be a little hard to find. But, if you know where to look and what you’re looking for, you can find big wads of these fish spawning in the shallows and giant bass lurking nearby.
Targeting bass around bream beds is one of the best ways to catch bass from late spring through early fall. The fish that are relating to these bream are typically large and aggressive, and a whole lot of fun to catch. Keep your eyes peeled while fishing in the backs of pockets and along areas of the main lake with slack water.
Clear water will help you see the beds. Keeping a topwater in hand while going down the bank will help you find beds and catch fish before you even see them. And, having a wacky rig tied up to milk a spot dry will help you make the most out of any beds you find.
Let’s get into the details and get more bass in your boat this summer.
When, Where, How — and What to Throw
When To Find Them
Depending on where you are in the country, you can find bluegill and other bream bedding from April through September. The key is the water temperature. Bream typically don’t start spawning until the water temperatures reach the 70-degree mark. Then they will spawn multiple times throughout the summer, with heavier spawning activity around full moons.
Where To Look
Bream like to spawn in less than 10 feet of water, often spawning in less than 2 feet. Unlike bass, which form individual beds, bream typically form several beds in a cluster, or colony. Look for these groups of beds along protected shorelines, where there’s no current and in the backs of pockets.
How To Find Them
You can find bream beds a couple different ways. In shallow, clear water, simply put the trolling motor on high and start down the bank; you’ll be able to see them with either your naked eye or a quality pair of polarized sunglasses.
If the water is deeper or a little stained, you can find bream beds using your forward facing sonar or with side scanning technology. Again, these beds are typically arranged in a cluster, which will look like a dozen or so tires laying flat on the bottom.
What Baits To Use
Bass that are relating to bream beds respond really well to topwater baits and wacky rigs. These fish will also eat Texas rigged soft plastics and swim jigs too, as well as vibrating jigs, spinnerbaits, wake baits, and glide baits.
Really, any bait that resembles an injured or struggling bream is prone to get smashed around a bream bed, but the baits that do the best job of creating this illusion are topwaters and wacky rigs.
How To Catch Them
Bringing all of this information together, let’s talk about how to actually catch these fish.
For starters, you want to make sure the timing is right. Say you’re going fishing in the south in May. Then you, for sure, want to be on the lookout for bream beds. Start by looking on main lake banks that are protected from wind or current, or in the back half of main lake pockets. These are two high percentage places to start your search.
Once you pick a spot, pick up the trolling motor and put it on about 75%. (If you’re fishing from the bank or a kayak, you can certainly catch bass around bream beds, too.) With the trolling motor on high, start down the bank, close enough to the shore so that you can see the bottom out in front of you as well as all the way between you and the bank.
As you go down the bank in search of bream beds, keep a reeling-style topwater in your hand and bomb-cast it straight in front of the boat so that you can parallel the bank as you go. Baits like Whopper Ploppers, Choppos, buzzbaits, and toads all work really well for this depending on the cover. If the water is free of cover, use the treble hooked baits. If there’s a little patchy grass, go with the buzzbait. If the grass is pretty thick, use the toad.
Keep Track of the Beds You Find
While covering water this way, you’re very likely to throw your bait over top of a bream bed before you even see it with your eyes, drawing an aggressive blowup from a bass that has no idea you’re in the area yet. If you stumble onto a bream bed without getting a bite first, then make a mental note of where it is or mark it on your graph and continue down the bank. In time, you’ll mark several like this that you can double back and fish through, skipping over the stretches of dead water.
Wolf Packs
You will find, too, that you catch some fish doing this that aren’t relating to any particular bream beds. Bass will group up in small schools when bream are bedding and these “wolf packs” will wander up and down the bank in search of beds, just the same as you are. When one of these wolf packs collides with a bed, it’s chaos. Likewise, when you run into them while you’re both between the beds, things can get pretty wild in a hurry too.
These bass are fully aware of their running buddies, and it’s an all out competition for your topwater when it comes burning through the middle of them.
There’s the more subtle approach, of course, where you wacky rig a Senko and fish it slowly. This isn’t really practical until you find a cluster of beds, or several clusters of them to rotate through. If you try to go down the bank in search of beds with a wacky rig, it may take you hours to even find one. But, once you know where a few beds are, it is a great idea to make a milk run through the beds with a wacky rig, especially if you’ve seen bass relating to them that wouldn’t react to your topwater.
